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Last week for vacation week for me. I think it’s been a while since the last time I had an entire week off, not counting last year’s unemployment.

I didn’t really have any plans for my vacation except that I knew I would go to Rose City Comic Con. I was content on playing video games or watching TV the rest of the time. On Thursday of the week before, I reminded Xander that I was going to be off for a week (not surprisingly, he had forgotten) and he suggested that we take a road trip to Crater Lake. The next day I remembered hearing about fires in that part of the state and I went online to discover that the lake wasn’t visible most of the time because of the smoke. So, on Saturday Xander suggested that we should go to the Painted Hills instead. The plan for whatever idea was to leave Monday and return Wednesday since we had to host game night Wednesday. Xander found a cabin near the Painted Hills which was very inexpensive, but didn’t have running water and used a generator for electricity.

We left Monday around 2pm with Reese. I usually leave Reese behind because he can be a handful and having a dog can limit what you can do. We almost took him with us on a trip to the coast a few weeks earlier, but left him behind in the end. My biggest concern on this trip was keeping him cool. He has a lot of fur and doesn’t handle heat well. The owners of the cabin promised us it would be hot. The Airbnb listing for the cabin did promise air conditioning, however.

Early in the trip we we through the Gorge. There was a big forest fire started there a couple of days before by some kid throwing fireworks. It got smokier and smokier the closer we got to the the place where the fire started – the Eagle Creek Trail. Xander, our friend David, and I hiked this trail a little over a year ago. We made a stop in this area because I wanted to get gas. I shouldn’t have been surprised to find out that the gas station was closed. The scene at the gas station was somewhat apocalyptic. We couldn’t see any fire, but we could see enough smoke coming from the trees to know that the fire was close. A flock of birds flew overhead along with helicopters. There were cars pulled over on the side of the road. The sun was red. We let Reese out of car and he seemed very confused. The interstate we took was closed later in the day and it is still closed a week later.

The rest of the drive down wasn’t quite as interesting. We listened to podcasts and the radio. At times it seemed like we were the only ones on the road. I guess it’s a benefit of travel on Labor Day. We saw lots of windmills up close. We drove through some really small towns. We were on a lot of winding roads, which I hate. Why couldn’t they just build a straight road there? As we were getting close to the end, we encountered some livestock in the street and some people, along with their dog, trying to herd them. They got all of the cows in the other lane, but I was afraid that if I moved at the wrong time, the cows could charge my car and do some serious damage. Eventually they got all the cows into the grass and we could safely pass.

We drove the last part of the trip in the dark. I don’t like driving in the dark in unfamiliar areas, but oh well. A city with lots of light would have been fine, but it was hard to see at times. We arrived at our destination in Dayville, OR around 9pm. The cabin owners had told us to look for a steep driveway. We didn’t know just how steep. My car could not go up this steep, unpaved driveway. We got out and decided to walk even thought we didn’t know how far it was to the cabin. It was hot outside and going up the steep driveway was hard on me and Reese. When we got up to the top of the first hill, I was winded and we couldn’t see how much farther we had to go. Xander decided to scout on ahead. I was looking for other places we could spend the night on my phone. Even if we made it to the cabin, I figured it would be hard getting all our stuff from the car to the cabin. And walking back and forth for two days would be annoying. Thankfully, a few minutes later a truck came back with Xander and the owner of the cabin. He took us to get our stuff and drove us to the cabin. It would have been a pretty long walk from where we stopped to the cabin. He told us that we were the first ones since they started renting the cabin in December that didn’t make it up the driveway. He left the keys to the truck with us and told us we could use the truck to get back and forth. We never saw either of our hosts again after this because they were working and we were out a lot. The cabin was roomier than I expected and it really cooled down at night. Since we left most of our entertainment in the car, we just hung out for a while and went to bed.

Our hosts lived off the grid. They use a generator and solar panels to provide electrify to their home and the cabin. They had a solar shower outside the cabin and an outhouse as a bathroom. There were also horses in a pen outside the cabin.

We headed out to the painted hills on Tuesday, which was about an hour away. More long, winding roads. Once we got close to the trailheads, you could see the hills and they were amazing. We didn’t actually spend that long on the trail. Just long enough to walk around a bit and take some photos. All of us were getting really hot. I think it was in the 90s and the time and it was supposed to get up to 106 later in the day.

Once we left we went back to Dayville, we went in search of a watering hole. Xander had it in his mind that he wanted to teach Reese to swim, but we couldn’t convince Reese to get in the water. Xander got in a little and I put my feet in the water.

After this we decided to drive to the nearby town of John Day. It’s still a mystery who John Day is. I promised I would prepare a powerpoint presentation on him one day after we got back. We drove around the city a little, got some pizza, and headed back to a picnic area we found along the way. After eating, we took a walk around and came to stream with some deer in it. Reese went down to the water and took a drink, but still wouldn’t get in. We stopped to take some photographs on the way back.

The cabin was still hot when we got back so we hung out outside for a while before we went outside. We couldn’t get the air conditioner to work. We had a Magic the Gathering tournament. Late in the night we watched a movie called “The Road to Galveston” on a VHS cassette that was in the cabin.

We got up pretty early to drive back home the next day. Much of the drive was smokey and we couldn’t see too far in the distance. We drove through areas that looked like it had been affected by fires in previous years. It’s sad to think that so much of the state is burning. The drive seemed to go on forever. We made it back around 2pm on Wednesday. There was some ash in the air, which I had seen people posting about while we were out of town.

A couple of hours later, Xander and I hosted game night at the Q Center. I was so out of it. I played a couple of games and spent the rest of the night on the bench outside talking to people who were taking breaks. Lately, we’ve had this tradition of going for drinks after game night, but I was too tired. We went home.

On Thursday, I did a lot of cleaning. The rest of my vacation was devoted Rose City Comic Con, which I will talk about later

I’m glad that I got to go on a road trip with such a great friend and my dog. They were great company and we had very few problems. I wonder what the next adventure will be.